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Older moms share their wisdom

Dear Readers: I have thoroughly enjoyed reading your many responses to “Left Speechless,” the 55-year-old mother who felt herself struggling with how to reply to strangers when asked if she is her childrens’ mother or grandmother. We have such a supportive and insightful Dear Annie community (filled with many wonderful mothers!). Here were some of my favorite letters: Dear Annie: I was also an older mother and was often mistaken for my son’s grandmother. I knew it was going to happen, and I was never upset or irritated by it. My response was, “I’m the mom. I was blessed ...

Services can help with donations

donations to women’s shelters: Ask your local law enforcement or social services agency if they would be willing to drop the donations off for you. They recognize the security issues and are most helpful, since they have seen the problems up close. -- Elle Smith, in Los Angeles FAVORITE SEASONAL ICE CREAM Dear Heloise: Every fall, our favorite ice cream parlor sells soft-serve pumpkin spice ice cream. My favorite ice cream cone is stacked with pumpkin spice and chocolate soft serve. Absolutely delicious! I read your column every day in the Daily Freeman in Kingston, New York. -- ...

Rebuilding trust after an affair

Dear Annie: I’ve been married for 22 years, and my husband and I have three teenagers together. My issue is, I caught my husband cheating three years ago and found out that his affair had lasted six years. He claimed that he wasn’t getting his needs met at home. Nonetheless, it broke my heart and my trust. I don’t know what I have to do to get past this. I even thought about or wished that someone could just knock it out of my brain. But triggers pop up everywhere. We can’t even watch a show together without someone having an affair, and it just triggers me and ruins the whole ...

Letting birds build their nests

Dear Heloise: I appreciate the recent letter about the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918. I was surprised by how many people wrote in with methods of how to discourage birds from building nests at their house. We had a barn swallow who built a nest up under the eaves of my front porch. She had three batches of babies for four years in a row. I was happy to give her a safe, dry place to lay and hatch her eggs. Sure, when the babies got bigger, I had to wash a little poop off the front porch. But this was not a problem for me in the least. -- Sandy D., via email Sandy, I once had a ...

Shoe shopping

My wife and I recently went shoe shopping. As with most married couples, this meant that she shopped while I tagged along. She is quite sneaky regarding such things. I was lured into a superstore with hints that we might visit the power tool department only to find myself wandering through a maze of shoes. The stacks of footwear were high enough to tickle the bellies of passing clouds. “Where are we going?” I asked in my best non-whiny manner. “Stop your whining!” my wife replied. “You sound an electric coffee mill. We’re here because we both ...

The pessimist farmer

Farmers are the original eternal optimists. Indeed, it was a hailed-out farmer who first coined the phrase “Just wait until next year!” and not, as legend has it, a diehard sports fan. Optimism is an essential component of a farmer’s character. Perhaps the most pessimistic farmer I ever knew was an old, tough-as-nails bachelor named Martin Rud. Dad owned some equipment with Martin, so I saw a lot of our next-door neighbor while growing up on our family’s dairy farm. Martin often dropped by to share the latest gossip and had an uncanny knack for arriving right when we ...